I promised a few posts about survival and I can think of few things more important than being able to build a fire. We spend a lot of time working with our girls on their fire building skills.
Almost every night we have one of the teenagers build the campfire. This is for two reasons. As teenagers, they prefer to spend time making sure their phones are charged. We make sure they unplug and participate with the family. Secondly, they have no choice but to learn to build a fire. It is a perishable skill and we want them to practice in case they are ever in a survival situation.
We have taught them they must have three methods of building a fire in their packs. We monitor them to make sure they practice with all three. We don’t want them to be learning in a tough situation. Much better to become proficient in the safety of camp.
While they sometimes get frustrated, we won’t let them just grab the lighter out of the camper. This teaches the girls more than just lighting a good fire. We don’t let them give up no matter how frustrated they get. What they also learn in the process is perseverance and patience. And a little bit of performance under pressure. A little, or sometimes a lot to teasing contributes to the lesson. We can’t create the pressure of performing this task in a survival situation, but performance under the pressure of everyone watching isn’t a bad substitute.
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